Материал: ethnicity

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persons of different ethnic groups and is dependent on cultural differentials that persist. The problem with Barth's conception has already been discussed. Group A can be labeled A in relation to B, C, and D. But among themselves, A people are keenly aware of subgroup differences in which groups X, Y, and Z all understand the ethnic distinctions among themselves and the possibility of greater or lesser differences in the future, depending upon a large range of factors.

Ethnicity is first and foremost situational (cf 20, 36, 39). Using our definition, the interactive situation is a major determinant of the level of inclusiveness employed in labeling self and others. As already noted, "the same person can be categorized according to different criteria of relevance in different situations" (20, p. 192). In one situation it may be occupation, in another education, in a third, ethnicity. The labels are applied in the situation in order to explain behavior. A particular action or appearance is referred to as "ethnic," or meaning is attributed to actions because of the ethnic label available for application. This label then infers other culturally related characteristics and provides an explanation, an origin in socialization and tradition concerning the behavior of actors. A similar set of categories can be based on nonethnic labeling, e.g. education or occupation. The scale level of confrontation in the situation generally determines the scale level of ethnic inclusiveness. The label used provides self and/or others with a set of features that explain what to expect, where such behavior comes from, and often as not how one should react to such a syndrome.

The problem is closely illustrated in African settings in which segmental named groupings based on descent cut across "tribal" units based on locality. Working in Bura-speaking areas of northeastern Nigeria, I have found two major subethnic groups, Pabir (centralized) and Bura (uncentralized), that traditionally shared most but not all their cultural traits (10). Each is subdivided into clans and major segments with putative descent ties becoming distant and dimmer with increased scale. Clans are strongly identified with groupings that at times seem to vie with larger categories such as Pabir, Bura, Kanuri, Hausa, or Marghi. Yet clans cut across presently accepted ethnic units (tribes) and were tied to historic migratory patterns westward from the Cameroon mountains associated with population expansion. Today the major town of the area, Biu, is becoming urbanized. Locals also talk of "Biu people" as a special category who have common interests and a developing commonality of semimodernized ways. At the same time, the contemporary period has witnessed great changes in the traditional Bura religious baseline so that Pabir are (mostly) Muslim and Bura (mostly) Christian. Islam is spreading, however, at the expense of Christianity, and the division of the area is also seen in religious terms that have many

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cultural correlates but which are not clearly congruent with Pabir/Bura distinctions. If we take into account the steady spread of Hausa language and dress patterns in the 1960s and '70s, the situation becomes even more complex. Depending upon the situation, a person from the area can, among others not mentioned here, identify himself as Pabir or Bura, by clan or subclan or minor lineage segment, by village or town, by religion, by mid- dle-belt status in the Muslim north, or by northerner status in the larger Nigerian setting in relation to southerners.

In operational terms, situational ethnicity can be observed in the interaction of two or more persons from separate groups in which labels are used to signify the sociocultural differences between them. It results from multiple memberships in differently scaled sociocultural groupings, one of which is used to signify the differences between actors in the situation. However, the situational character of ethnicity is only a starting point for theorizing. As long as we believe that the emergence and persistence of ethnic differences is not a random event in any particular instance, we must be prepared to ask what factors determine its qualities and variation.

Ethnic Relations

Ethnicity has no existence apart from interethnic relations. It is in this sense that Hoetink (23) describes it as "segmentary" since the use of ethnic labels depends upon a proclaimed difference between groups. Some writers (e.g. 18) suggest that the labeling reflects political relations when groups compete for scarce resources. Others qualify this point (e.g. 49) by noting that for the most part ethnicity does not come into play in interactive situations because it is often in no one's interest to utilize this particular form of status delineation. The degree to which ethnicity enters into intergroup relations is, therefore, a variable. What determines the salience of this quality and how it in turn affects intergroup relations is what defines the field of interethnic relations.

Leaving aside for the moment how and why salience occurs, the ethnographic record includes a bewildering array of interethnic relations stemming from "silent trade" to colonial expansion and the incorporation of migrant populations. To simplify these materials, we can classify the conditions of interaction in terms of the nature and degree of contact between them and the relative power available to each in the interactive situation. If, for sake of brevity, we reduce these variations to dichotomous categories, then interethnic relations can be described as fragmented, indirect, balanced, and stratified as seen in Table 2. These polar types are distinctively different; but as the classification criteria change, e.g. from unequal to equal or from less to more contact, then intermediate types or conditions of interaction are reported.

Fragmented relations between ethnic groups occur when the groups involved have little or no necessary reasons for interaction. Conditions for such isolation are low population density and self-sufficiency within local groups. Empirically, only hunting bands and camp groups approach such conditions. Kinship relations extend across local groupings, creating degrees of social distance based on marriage and descent; and there is increasing mistrust, hostility, and fear the greater the distinctions between groups in sociocultural terms. Relations among Eskimo groups and between Eskimo and Indian groups were of this sort, as were relations between Shoshoni and Plains peoples.

Indirect relations occur when groups are unequal and contacts between them are infrequent. In such instances, the groups live in clearly separate and mutually isolated contexts relating to one another through special institutions or functionaries that allow for peaceful interchange. The same institutions also restrict the dominance capabilities of the stronger group, providing the weaker group with more autonomy than would otherwise be the case if the groups were in contact more frequently. The "silent trade" of West Africa exemplifies such relations. In Bornu, the dominant Kanuri had such relations with Budduma peoples of Lake Chad. The latter lived on islands in the lake and traded only intermittently with Kanuri. Kanuri power was restricted because they could not get to Budduma home villages on the waters of the lake, and much of the trade and other relations were carried out through a few Budduma "big men" or local chiefs who emerged in the nineteenth century when the Kanuri capital moved close to the lake.

Balanced relations between ethnic groups occur in equilibrium situations of symbiosis and homeostatic interactions described by field workers in the classic structure-function mode of analysis. Relations between nomadic pastoralists and agriculturalists, between coastal and interior peoples in New Guinea, or among and between islanders in Melanesia, or between mountain Konjo dwellers in Uganda and Amba lowlanders, or between

different agricultural peoples of the Nigerian middle belt (Kagoro and Tacherak), all exemplify such relations. In theoretical terms, the elements are remarkably similar. The groups involved live near each other or share the same territory. Each has some distinctive subsistence and productive practices due to historically determined cultural differences or ecology or both. This results in ethnically based differential productivity that supports trading relations advantageous to all concerned. Each group maintains its ethnic distinctiveness and then trades with nearby groups for goods not produced at home. Cross-ethnic blood brotherhoods, joking relations, inherited trading partners, extension of incest taboos to trading partners, rights, duties, and privileges of sanctuary, all these and more develop to sustain the balanced relations as these are described.

Unquestionably, ethnicity is (partially) sustained by mutually advantageous exchange relations among and between separate ethnic groups. However, the lack of time depth in these earlier studies and the tendency to label all exchange relations as equilibria situations reflecting equality between the partners gave them an unreal quality-the so-called ethnographic present -in which what is observed at a point in time is turned into a frictionless and timeless "system" whose parts all function to sustain the whole. There are two related problems here. First, groups that exchange mutually advantageous goods and/or services may or may not be equal in power. The exchange by itself says little or nothing about power differences. Secondly, the relationship between the groups changes over time depending upon factors affecting the trade and power relations between the groups. So-called symbiotic relations between Fulani and Hausa (24) or Fulani and Bornoans (47) broke into open conflict once population pressures and migration patterns increased the numbers of pastoralists in relation to agriculturalists (1 1). This produced increased demand for pasturage and increased exactions by the sedentary owners of the land, resulting ultimately in warfare and nomad conquest of the region. Salzman (41) has noted a similar process for Baluchistan in which access to water became the chief source of conflict resulting in a similar conflict and a similar result. Thus, changes in the relations between ethnic groups over access to resources can produce conflicts and ultimate shifts in the reversals in the power relations between them.

By far the most commented upon relations between ethnic groups are those based on differential power. Unequal relations between ethnic groups occurs when membership helps significantly to determine access to scarce resources. By resources, I mean any and all instrumentalities used to satisfy culturally defined needs and desires. Examples would be means of subsistence, means of social mobility such as jobs, education, or offices, medical, judicial, and other government services, land wealth, i.e. all of the goods,